1. Technical Field
The present disclosure generally relates to security for communications conducted over a network using a handheld mobile or other consumer electronic device and, more particularly, to a security mechanism for logging in to apps executing on the device that provides user convenience through either fast login or avoiding repetitive logging in when using multiple apps on the device.
2. Related Art
Many compact, handheld consumer electronic devices such as mobile phones with mobile web browsers, smart phones, and electronic note pads allow the use of various applications programs, or “apps”, for a great variety of types of communications including, for example, texting, social networking, email, and electronic commerce, which generally refers to the buying and selling of products or services over electronic networks such as the Internet and other computer networks using electronic devices. Apps used for these various types of communication may benefit from and even rely on some form of security in terms of not allowing unauthorized access to use of the app, and thus may require some form of login. For example, a bank or other financial service provider may provide an app for use on a mobile device that allows access to the device user's account at the financial service provider. Similarly, in the case of email and social networking, for example, it can be desirable and important to prevent impersonation of the owner of the email account or the owner's social networking page. Thus, many of the apps on a user's device may require some form of secure login to authenticate the user of the app. When many apps are being used at one time on a single device, the user may encounter some inconvenience (e.g., delay in accomplishing desired tasks) from multiple or repetitive logins when switching from one app to another or when returning to a previously used app that has already logged the user out.